I don't think people have much problems with Pocket itself, especially now that it's owned by Mozilla, it was mostly about it being a default addon. I don't personally mind it, since it's a lot better than just having a full bookmarks bar, but can see why some people would.
It was never an add on. It's built into the core of the browser.
You can hide its button, but all the code is still there.
No, it's a great product. Everyone complains that bookmarking is broken then here's an alternative, then some naysayers find a hole in it too. Some folks are impossible to please.